Master commands for reading file contents and searching through files and directories. Learn cat, less, head, tail, grep, and find to efficiently locate and inspect data.

Learning Objectives

View file contents with cat, less, head, and tail

Search file contents with grep

Find files and directories with find

Monitor log files in real-time

Step 1

Set up practice files with content

Create files with sample content for viewing and searching.

Commands to Run

cd ~

mkdir search-practice && cd search-practice

echo 'Hello World' > hello.txt

echo -e 'Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3\nERROR: Something failed\nLine 5' > log.txt

echo -e 'apple\nbanana\ncherry\ndate\nelderberry' > fruits.txt

What This Does

echo writes text to files. > creates new file. -e enables escape sequences like \n (newline). We're creating test files with known content to practice viewing and searching.

Expected Outcome

Three files created: hello.txt (1 line), log.txt (5 lines with ERROR), fruits.txt (5 lines of fruit names).

Pro Tips

1
echo writes to stdout (screen) by default
2
> redirects output to file (creates or overwrites)
3
>> appends to file instead of overwriting
4
-e flag interprets \n as newline

Common Mistakes to Avoid

⚠️Using > instead of >> and accidentally overwriting files
⚠️Forgetting quotes around text with spaces

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103 — Viewing & Searching Files